It’s endlessly fascinating to speculate on the source of an artist or writer’s creativity. Roald Dahl believed that his own writing career was kickstarted by the bang on the head and concussion that he suffered in a second world war flying accident. It was part of his mythology.
The distinctive Welsh company Gagglebabble pick up on this idea to fuel their own creative endeavour, which cleverly weaves Dahl’s time in the Anglo-Swiss Hospital in Alexandria, when he drifted between consciousness and unconsciousness and reality and nightmare, with his own twisted short stories for adults. Paper planes flit across the stage; Dahl’s sudden urgent need to write is indicated by a swirling blizzard of paper.
Part of the fun is in recognising the stories – still so often part of a teenage rite of passage, as you move from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to Kiss Kiss – but it’s also in Gagglebabble’s distinct aesthetic, which mixes a live score with storytelling and a highly developed gothic sensibility. The stories, which take us from a creepy Brighton landlady’s lodgings, full of stuffed pets, to a reckless gamble in Jamaica, give the company a chance to offer up different musical styles, which they do with evident glee and plenty of invention.
This is a company that has always taken and given pleasure in excavating the macabre, and they do so here with a meaty, murderous intent. In the process, they match and celebrate Dahl’s imagination, while speculating on the trauma that unleashed it.
- At Underbelly Topside, Edinburgh, until 28 August. Box office: 0131-226 0002.
